West

The American West gives our nation a rich variety of people, places, and history. From our border with Mexico in the southwest to our connection with Canada in the Northwest, the region encompasses an large, but amazing part of the United States.

The western portion of our work on the Our National Parks Project focuses on California and Nevada. We hope to add more visits and stories from the West in the months ahead.

Our stops include the City of San Francisco and its numerous national parks and recreation areas. We also visit one of America's first national parks, Yosemite National Park, and we head to Las Vegas and Boulder City areas of Nevada to visit Hoover Dam and Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

Alcatraz Island, part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, as seen from San Francisco Bay (Photo by Jessy Schuster).

Each of these locations are exciting to visitors for different reasons. The beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge, one of the icons of the West, is breathtaking to all visitors and is in the middle of much of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area of San Francisco Bay.

Yosemite, known worldwide for its stunning views and Giant Sequoia trees, should not be missed. In the heart of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the park offers glaciers, rivers, and rock formations of all sizes and shapes.  

And the dramatically different desert region of Las Vegas and Boulder City in Nevada gives us Lake Mead National Recreation Area and the Boulder Dam along the famed Colorado River as it heads toward the Pacific Ocean.

Join us as we visit these places and explore them for you....

A tour group learns about Boulder Dam, also known as Hoover Dam, at Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Boulder city, Nevada (Photo by Diana Offutt).